Late Nights

I’ve had three recording studio sessions and another one tonight. It’s such a great experience. I’m constantly in shock that I’m actually doing this. I don’t know how I got from being afraid to do my first open mic night last January to recording an album in less than 8 months. It’s been a whirlwind. And I love it.

We have started all 11 songs on the album. Most are pretty close to done and just need vocals. In some ways I feel like I might be rushing through the recording process, mainly because I only have so much money and don’t want to spend 4 hours on one song. But, also because it’s just the way I work. It is a fun process, but it’s also somewhat tedious. Playing the same song over and over again until you get the right take can be draining. So, I get it as good as I can and move along. I don’t want it to be overly polished anyway. What’s really cool is that we are recording to tape, so it should have a really cool sound to it – none of that digital-ness.

The other difficult part is that we are doing this on weeknights. I’m getting so sleepy! Not getting home until 11:30 on a Wednesday night is not something I’m used to. But it’s so worth it.

It’s strange, but the more I do with this music stuff, the more I want to accomplish. I never intended on doing anything but the occasional open mic, then I started booking my own shows. I never intended on making a real album, but here I am. I never intended to want to do more with this, but I do.

I’m just so eager to complete the album and have it in my hands. And if it’s the only one I ever make, well, at least I made one and followed one of my dreams.

Click Clack

My dog is old. It’s becoming more and more apparent how old he actually is. He still wants to play and go for walks, but just not for as long. His hips will give out on him as he’s jumping around. He can’t see or hear very well anymore so it’s hard to keep/get his attention. His muzzle is growing whiter each day. It breaks my heart.

But this is not about that. This is about the other side effect of his aging. This is about how I don’t get to sleep anymore.

Over the last few months, he has difficulty sleeping through the night. This never used to be a problem for him. He would go to bed when we did and wake up to the alarm with us. At most, he would wake up 5 minutes before the alarm went off and stand at attention by the side of the bed waiting for one of us to take him for his morning walk.

But lately, he’s been waking up at first light, which is about 4am these days. He will get up, shake – this causes the tags on his collar to sound like a school bell, then he goes for a walk up and down the hallway made of hardwood. Click Clack – Click Clack – Click Clack – Click Clack, for what feels like forever when you are trying to enjoy those very important final two hours of r.e.m. sleep before the alarm sounds. Up and down he goes until he remembers he’s thirsty and makes it to the kitchen to lap up water. Then he wanders back to the bedroom and stands by the bed and pants. And pants and pants and pants. I have never heard a dog breathe so loud. I feel really bad for my husband. He is on the side of the bed Murray can actually get to. I have the luxury of not having much space between my side and the wall, so Murray doesn’t venture over to wake me up with his morning breath. Not that it matters, since I can hear him perfectly well on my side with two pillows over my head.

I don’t know why he gets up like this every day (and I do mean every day). It’s not a bathroom issue. I can only attribute it to getting old and a little confused.

I look at my dad as an example. He recently told me that he can no longer sleep through the night and he gets up and paces the halls around midnight. Sometimes he’ll even do the dishes or clean the bathroom. I always felt bad for my brother, who he lived with until a couple of weeks ago, as I could understand the sleep difficulties he must have when dad gets up at midnight and walks up and down the hall.

Amazingly I manage to function every day on the limited, interrupted sleep I’m getting every night. I used to be a person that had to have at least 8 hours of sleep each night in order to make it through a day. Now I’m getting about 5-6 hours followed by a couple of hours of dog noise interrupted sleep.

But, I don’t like to complain too much about it. I love my dog so very much and I know the day will come when I will get a full 8 hours of solid sleep again and I know what that will mean. And that is a terrible thought. Because even though every day around 5am as I am cursing under my breath for him to go lay down, I know that when I get home from work his happy smiling dog face will be there to greet me, tail wagging. I’ll be covered in dog kisses and dog hair. And I wouldn’t have it any other way.

The Virgin Suicides

The Virgin Suicides has long been a favorite movie of mine. I love the story, it's quiet, the acting, the soundtrack, the look and feel of the film. All so well done. The soundtrack is one of my favorite albums. Just perfect from beginning to end.

As of today, I have read the book by Jeffrey Eugenides. It was so very good.

I love that you don't know why they killed themselves. I love that you only know the story of the Lisbon girls from an outsiders perspective. And reading about the deaths made them seem even more haunting and sad and real. You find yourself just as enamored with these girls as the boys who crushed on them for years and are now telling you their story. The slight differences between the film and the movie (and there are very few differences - Sofia Coppola did a brilliant job) really made the story even more real. ****SPOILOR ALERT**** That Mary doesn't die during her suicide attempt with her remaining three sisters and takes her own life months later, you almost feel bad for her that she didn't get it done the first time. Their lives are so dismal and all they had was each other. In the film, if I remember correctly, Mary passes with the rest of them.

It's a beautiful book and beautiful movie and I highly recommend each of them.

I'm going to go watch the movie again now.

Oh, and go get the soundtrack. It's amazing.

Bass Lines

I've had a bass guitar on loan to me this month. I wanted bass on my album and it was suggested that I should be able to pick it right up, being that I play guitar. They are, essentially, the same instrument.

Yeah, right.

I wrote one bass line for my song "Good" that turned out fairly well. It happened very organically and sounds kind of like a real bass line. Yes, it all takes place on one string. But it works.

After that, I was out of ideas. I couldn't come up with anything other than just hitting the bass notes on a beat without giving myself a headache.

When the time came to record the bass lines for the album last Friday, I had picked the minimum number of songs that only really felt like they had to have bass on them. I plucked away cautiously at the strings. My producer suggested a funky little country rhythm for my song "Cast A Spell". After a couple of takes of me struggling to produce the sound, we gave up and stuck with my simple notes on singular strings.

(I did not look as cool as this cartoon chick.)

It's a very touchy instrument. Those big metal strings resonate strongly if even slightly brushed and it refuses to go unnoticed.

Things I had thought up at home recorded so differently. Buzzing and harmonics sounded throughout. I managed to get it recorded fairly decently on a few songs and then that was it. My relationship with the bass guitar has ended. I don't intend to ever pick it up again. Hopefully by the next album, I'll have a bass player.

The Big Day Has Come

So today is a big day. It is day one of my very first recording session for my album. So weird to say. I can’t believe I’m actually doing it.

But, of course, with all good things that come into my life, I tend to think very negatively. There is always this fear in me that something will come along to ruin it.

My life as a child/teenager was filled with many ups and downs. Whenever things got to be too good, something would always come crashing down.

This has led to an adult life where I am always expecting the worst and feel I can never get too excited about something.

For example, I come from vacation with a strange facial twitch and sensation that I have no idea where it will lead. I don’t really need that kind of stress and it’s putting a damper on the excitement leading up to my recording session.

Now, tonight is the night. The twitch and sensation are fading, but I’m surrounded by sick people. Well, one person in particular. And, of course, I automatically feel my chest tighten up and am quite certain that I am going to start coughing like a maniac. Is it all in my head? Most likely. But there is always the chance that it’s not – and that is what gets me.

So, I just have to make it through work today. I got to drive the car, which means I don’t have to be surrounded by a bunch of gross bus people with their gross illnesses. I just get to go straight home, pack up all of my musical stuff and hit the road. Will I make it through? Most likely. But what if I don’t.

Okay. I sound like a crazy person. I know. But everyone has a “thing” and this is mine. I’m becoming a germaphobe. Well, not so much a germaphobe. I’m just grossed out by sick people and do everything I can to avoid them. I also suck down tea and vitamins and any sort of cold/flu preventative I can find to try to avoid getting sick. So, maybe I have a phobia of getting sick.

Whatever the case may be, I just need to stay healthy today.

Twitch

I was on vacation last week. Another trip to the U.P. A much needed week long vacation.

We rode horses, we went kayaking, we slept, we read, we sat.

Our last night there, my face developed a twitch right around my left cheekbone. It was right after I saw a spider on my blanket as I was getting ready for bed. I hate spiders. I think the stress of the return trip home and the thought of a spider in bed with me caused the twitching to start. It hasn’t gone away yet. It occurred to me just now that it hasn’t twitched in a couple of hours, but something still doesn’t feel right.

If this is stress related, which it very well could be – I have a ton going on right now, the twitching doesn’t help. Now I’m fearful that I will wake up with half of my face limp. Not a very kind thought.

When I begin to even think about everything going on this week, I can feel the left side of my face stiffen. Tons of work stuff just popped up, I start recording my album on Wednesday, I have post vacation laundry piling up, and we were supposed to redo our patio on Saturday, but I had to cancel. I just can’t add that level of stress to an already stressful week. I feel terrible about it as my sister was really rallying the troops together to help us fix our crumbling brick patio. But with everything going on with my face, something had to give. I just need to mellow.

I just got back from vacation. Why am I so stressed?

The Palace Stage

I promise I won't turn this blog into a place to revel in performing and dump my setlists, but it does work for that purpose, too, right? : )

I've just got a very busy month ahead and so much going on suddenly, that these quick posts will be it for a while.

I'll also be taking a week off while I'm on vacation. My first week long vacation in two years. I'm pretty excited.

And when I return, I start recording! Yay!

But for now, it's gigs, vacation, and prep. For example, today I am meeting with the drummer for the first time who will be my drummer for the album. I have never played with a drummer before. Should be an educating experience. Then, tonight, I play a two hour set at Trotter's Cafe. I'll be pulling out all the songs. Shouldalso be an educating experience.

Last night I played at The Palace Stage at Wild Tymes. What a great venue! Their stage is awesome and the sound is great. Here is what I played:

Good
The Paul Simon Song
Good to Know
Walking Strange (forgot the last verse!)
I Remember You (Skid Row cover - so much fun)
Cohabitate
No Words (new sappy love song written for The Husband)
Back at the Start -
-It's You
In the Company of Elvis

I'm kind of bummed. I've been trying to hang onto all of my setlists and it looks l left this one there. Oh, well.

And what is up with digital cameras? How come they can never take good photos of live performances. This is really me. I swear.

Amplified

Last night I played at The Coffee Grounds. So much fun, as always. My friends, Luke and Toni, and their band, Stella For Star, played as well.

The Coffee Grounds is a great place to play. People come there specifically to have a cup of coffee and to listen to some music, so there was a good crowd. I also had some unexpected surprises in the audience, and that's always awesome.

I always feel so relieved singing into a microphone. When I practice at home, I always feel like I sound like shit, or I have to strain. But then you're given a mic and your voice is amplified and it just makes singing so much easier.

The other nice thing about having a mic is that people think you're funny. You stand up their and start babbling and trying to make jokes and people laugh and you think, hey! I'm funny! This isn't so hard. At least I hope they're laughing with me. That was always the scariest part about performing live to me. The banter. What do you say when you're up there? But, it actually is pretty easy to ramble on when you have a mic in front of you. I wonder why that it is?

Last night's set:

Good

The Paul Simon Song

World of Pain

Good to Know

Walking Strange

Old-Fashioned Hat (Anais Mitchell cover)

Perspective

Minnesota

Cohabitate

Lord, I Have Made You a Place in My Heart (Greg Brown cover)

Back at the Start - It's You (I created a part 2 to this song on the fly the other night)

Cast a Spell

Dream Log #7

I had this super crazy/scary dream the other night. So scary that I’ve been trying to put it out of my mind. Even on the bus ride in the next day, when I remembered it, I had to close my eyes really tight and force myself to think about something else.

Surprisingly, it was not about zombies. It wasn’t a horror dream. It was just very bizarre.

My husband and I were sitting out in the backyard enjoying a picnic. The sun was shining bright. The sky was super blue. There was not a cloud to be seen. It was perfect outside.

Then I noticed the sun seemed extra large. In the dream, I was aware that the sun was way too big, but thought it was normal and that I was just over thinking things.



Then it started to change shape and…melt…almost. I commented to my husband that the sun resembled an omelette, it had that shape. At this point, the sun was as large as our house and looming overhead. We both thought it was very strange.

And then, it disappeared for a split second. The sky went dark. The stars sparkled. My heart just about stopped. But it came right back, just as big as before. We both just looked at each other.

Then it happened it again. But this time it shrunk really fast and then *poof*. Gone. The sky went dark again. The stars shined bright. We began to freak out.

We ran to the front door and noticed that the Northern Lights were out. They were extremely vivid and pulsating.

We went inside and decided to check the internet. My husband commented on what a nice day it had been. I calmly replied, “That was the last time we will ever see the sun again.”

A million thoughts raced through my mind at this point. Will we survive? What will happen? Is the world ending?

And then the news broke in on the television. It was a scam. And just like that, the sun came back. Some company created a huge hoax as a marketing ploy. How? I don’t know. Who? I don’t know. Because I woke up.

So, it’s not like someone was trying to kill me or I was drowning or anything like that. But, I have never been more terrified in my life or in a dream than I was in this one. And on the bus the next morning while the sun was shining bright and it was a beautiful day, I couldn’t stop thinking about what would happen if it just disappeared.

It still freaks me out.

Hello July!

July is finally here! I have so much to look forward to this month. June seemed to take forever to end and June is not normally a month that I want to end. The first officially month of summer. It should last forever. But this June did not feel like summer. The weather sucked. Cold, rainy, cloudy, windy. I think we had 2 completely nice days the whole month.

But now it's July. It is 4th of July weekend, which means no work on Monday! Three day weekend!

I'm kicking it off with a gig tonight at The Coffee Grounds. I'll be playing with my friends, Stella For Star. I consider this the start of my "tour" in July. I have 4 shows booked this month. I think that's pretty cool.

I'm also going on vacation in a couple of weeks. My first full week of vacation since 2008. It's really needed. We'll be making the usual trek up to Upper Michigan. It's so wonderful up there. I can't wait.

(My view every night in the UP)

Upon my return from vacation, I'll begin recording my album! I can't believe I'm actually doing this. It seems very surreal. I'm just going in completely blind. I have no idea what to expect once I start working in a "real" studio. It's all happening very fast, which for me, is the way to do it. If I waited around and gave it too much thought, I'd never follow through with it.

So much going on. It's going to be a crazy month.

Hooray summer!